After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Ghost of Mary Queen of Scots

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

*TW: This episode contains references to sexual violence.*Mary Queen of Scots' life was defined by violence, heartbreak and ultimately, betrayal.Since her bloody death at the hands of her cousin, Elizabeth I, many have claimed to have seen chilling sightings of her ghost.What are these sightings like? And what do they say about the tragic events of her life? And what do they say about the history of Scottish ghost culture?You can now watch After Dark on Youtube: www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitProduced by Stuart Beckwith. Edited by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Hi, we're your hosts, Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling. And if you would like after dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hi there, it's Maddie. every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hi there, it's Maddie. I'm just jumping in to let you know that this episode contains some

sensitive content. So if that's not for you, check out our back catalogue of amazing episodes. And if you're sticking with us, enjoy. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about some chilling sightings of the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots. Along the way, we're going to be talking about Scottish ghost culture and of course, Mary's tragic story. But first, before we do, we're going to roll back the years to Scotland in 1542 when, as a baby, Mary was suddenly thrown into the winter of 1542, six days into her fragile life, Mary Stuart became Queen. Not in glory, but in grief. Her father, James V, lay cold in his bed, supposedly whispering prophecy with his last breath.

It came with a lass, it'll gang with a lass. And so it did. The crown was passed to the cradle. But it wasn't until September 1543, amid the cloistered shadows of Stirling Castle that the infant queen was finally crowned. Nobles gathered in velvet and furs, wary eyes watching the ceremony unfold. The bishop's hands heavy with rings and ritual, hovered above a child too young to understand the power, or peril, now woven into her life. As the sacred oil anointed her skin, it could not shield her from the betrayals, the bloodshed, the exiles to come. She would rule France, flee Scotland, and be killed by England. That coronation marked not just the rise of a new sovereign, but the quiet toll of a distant

bell. Crowned before she could speak, Mary would spend her life with others trying to silence her, be it regents, rivals, or queens, a cousin who saw her as a threat. The sparkle of gold placed gently upon her head that day would one day morph and become the glint of an axe. But after that axe fell, did something of Mary's spirit remain? They say it lingers, seen in the centuries since gliding through corridors of castles significant to her, including Stirling Castle, the place where it all began. This is After Dark and this is the history of the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots. That was a very atmospheric and chilling opening to what is a really tragic tale. We've done

the final days of Mary before, so go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already. But her life is so full of tumult and change and these moments of drama and pivoting and yeah, I'm obsessed with them. We haven't even started. I know. It's funny because as you say, we've done the final days. We are going to give some context here again, just so that we're aware of the history. Because one of the things we always try to do with these ghostly paranormal stories, right, is place the history in and around it to say, what are these ghosts telling us about the history? Or are they telling us anything about the real history? Yeah, what work are they doing for us?

Yes. And they are doing, you know, there's a reason behind these ghost stories and we'll find out what those reasons are as we go through. Yeah. And I think Mary, Queen of Scots, along with several other Scottish figures, but she is one who has those ghostly and cultural resonances in Scotland and indeed across Britain. That she is this spectre that means different things to different people. So we will get into that. Give me some historic context then please. I will. So these are some facts. This is what we know before we get into the ghostly stuff. She was born in 1542 in Linlithgow Castle, a palace rather, in Scotland. Her father is

James V. He of course is Scottish. He is from the House of Stuart. Her mother is Mary. She is from the House of Gies. This is a Catholic family, Catholic French family. And the marriage is shoring up the old alliance between Scotland and France. And this is an important relationship that obviously goes on to shape Mary's life. It's very easy to forget that she becomes queen when she is six days old because her father, James V, dies. They're not entirely sure, cholera, diphtheria, some, one of those diseases that we don't quite know what it is. But he certainly is dead. It's a life then that is begun with death. Death is, you know, sort of hanging over her

not to be too poetic about it. But that's something that continues throughout her life. And it's sort of no wonder then that she becomes this ghostly figure later on that we kind of want to understand her in these terms of sort of fate and macabre-ness. Yeah, I mean it's such a weird image isn't it? On one side there is this coffin with a king in it and on the other side there's a cradle with six days into her life a queen in it. We'll just have a moment for that image. Thanks very much.

Wow. What is that little crown? It's not a little crown because there's only one crown and so that crown has to be placed over that baby's head at that coronation. So it's a very dramatic, and that crown is taken from the coffin of her deceased father, you know? And literally placed on, well not on her head, around her head. So it's a, as you say, it's very macabre passing over in this particular instance, actually in most instances, but when it's a baby it feels even more pertinent, doesn't it? You've talked there about the impact that France will have on her life and that she

will have on France. But tell me more about the Scotland that she's born into. What does that look like in this moment? So despite that alliance, well because of that, I suppose, Scotland is currently in conflict with the Habsburg Empire, so there's some tension going on there. England tensions are brewing slightly. It's a moment of uncertainty, I think, in Scotland, and then the King dies. And then a baby is in charge. And so then we kick into what is essentially a regency crisis where there is this grappling for power and who is going to be in control in this power vacuum. Yes, there's a monarch,

but she's a baby. So what is important and who's going to be leading that? It becomes really really pivotal. Not just who's going to be leading the nation, but who's going to be shaping that child as she grows. And if we want to talk a little bit more about that, then go back and listen to our final days. We discussed that in more depth here. But one of the things I want to come on to now is one of the other things that shapes the ghost of Mary and the history of her ghosts. And that's of course her marriages, because it's one of the aspects of her life that really

comes to define her death, actually. I know we've just talked about her being born, but we're moving swiftly to her death. She goes- We're just going to skip the middle part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot the whole life. In 1543, we have something that's known as the rough wooing. So to marry Mary Queen of Scots was important. And there were, as you can imagine, quite a few people vying for that to happen. One of those people was Henry VIII. He wanted

her to marry his son, who went on to be Edward VI. And this was known as the rough wooing. You know, those tensions I was talking about between England, some of that materialized. I think it was going on for like seven years, this negotiation. But it's not the same. Hate the name. The rough wooing. Hate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it didn't happen. So he didn't get what he wanted. And

that's quite good actually. So he didn't get what he wanted from Mary. And it didn't kind of go into that generational thing where Henry VIII is always getting what he wants from women. So that didn't happen with him. But instead she was betrothed to Francis the Dauphin of France. They married in 1558 after Henry the second's death. Then I so easily forget that. Francis and Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, they become King Queen of France. So she does have that brief moment in time. The clue is not in the name. No, the clue is absolutely not in the name. No. And so she's If anything, misleading.

Yeah. I think she's queen there for two years. So it's short lived. Her husband dies in 1560 and she comes back then to Protestant Scotland where, despite the fact that she's Catholic, but she comes back to Scotland just because I think she feels like she might have a place to rule there because technically this is her kingdom. So she's coming back and she makes her way back in 1561. She's not married, so she needs a partner. So the next person she shacks up with is Lord Darnley, who is English. He's an English noble. And he of course is the grandson of Margaret Tudor. Now that's important because remember we're talking about the Tudors before.

One of the reasons Mary comes back to Scotland is because she has a really strong claim to the English throne. She is the great granddaughter of Henry VII. And so now we have Darnley, who is the grandson of Margaret Tudor. So she is shoring up that claim to the English throne. So in theory, she's next after the children of Henry VIII, assuming they they don't have any offspring, which of course, famously, we know they don't. So we have the marriage now between Darnley and Mary. This is shoring up her claim to the English throne as well as the Scottish throne. But it's not going to end well, is it? It doesn't because we have Rizzio. It's quite famous, isn't it? We have this idea that Darnley murders Mary's favourite Ritio,

one of her favourites, and he is a close friend. He's also her secretary. So Darnley murders Ritio in front of Mary. Mary is six months pregnant at this point. She later miscarriages, I believe, because of the trauma of what she witnessed in that murder. And that in itself has its own ghostly thing. You know about this, right? Because you've spoken about this on the podcast before where Ritio's blood is supposed to reappear in Hollywood, I think it is. Yeah. And people in the 18th and 19th century specifically go as tourists to look at the stain on the floor. Yeah. And I think they still talk about it there. It's still a tourist thing there. As is so often the case with Mary's, the men

that's around Mary Darnley is also murdered. So there, this is husband number two that she's down now. Very strange circumstances. Becoming a pattern, Mary. Yeah, yeah. He disappears into the other realm. And then three months later. Blimey. I know. I'm feeling poetic today. Three months later she marries again. This time it's James Hepburn who is the Earl of Bothwell. Now it's worth noting at this point that Bothwell potentially rapes Mary

and because of that has a claim to take her as his wife because we have a word that's used in terms of their union which is called ravishment, that he had ravished her. And some historians have interpreted that that was a rape situation that he could then claim. Well, that's depressing. Yeah, it's not exactly the most enthusiastic marriage and it's not a positive marriage. Please tell me he gets murdered. He will, yes. He's not well liked and he's very erratic, he's very violent, as you can imagine, so that fits into that potential theory. And he has a problem with drink. And we're just watching here what his influence is, or the courtiers rather, are watching what his influence is on the throne. So, he is exerting an awful lot of power. Bothwell's intrusion is one of the ways in

which Mary starts to head towards her downfall. So there's a lot happening before we even get to the end of her life. That's tumultuous, right? There's so much happening and there's so much death. Yeah. Not only is she, yeah, she begins her life being crowned in the presence of a dead king, but she has these husbands who were all murdered. She is undergoing a significant amount of personal trauma, trauma to her body in terms of tragic miscarriages, a potential assault. This is a really dark and violent life so far and one where she is being pulled

this way and that by various people trying to get something from her, trying to get power, trying to maneuver her according to what they want. Okay, tell me the next part of her story then because she has these marriages that can't be, that's not it for her, is it? No, well, we know she's heading for a pretty tragic downfall. It's a slow downfall though, and it kind of starts with a rebellion because of the marriage to Bothwell. So this is another way in which the marriages contribute to her eventual downfall. So there is a rebellion which breaks out in 1567 and we have the battle of Carberry Hill which is against the Protestant Lords.

This is all in relation to what Bothwell is doing, how he's controlling Mary and the throne or how it's seen. She is arrested by her own Lords. She's taken to Loch Leven Castle and that's where she's imprisoned. They feel like it's better to be in control of the physical person of the Queen so that Bothwell is not, basically. Oh wow, he's that much of a liability. Yeah, well they're seeing this kind of blood and fire that Bothwell might bring and it's just not acceptable to them. So they feel like they have to take control. One of the ways in which they force that control on her is she is then forced to abdicate. So she has to give up

her crown so that her son will be the heir. They threaten that, you know, if she doesn't, this is just the end of the whole thing and that's not really acceptable to her and she's in there. And once again, her life is being defined by her relationship to men. This time it's her son as well as her husband's that she is yeah manipulated, maneuvered and understood according to the men in her life. It's under such duress is she at this point that she feels the only thing she can do and you wouldn't make this choice lightly but the only choice that she feels she has at this point is to flee to England. Yes. Which is the famous thing, right?

Everybody knows this is, she goes to her cousin Elizabeth I for refuge and she goes to England and we all know that doesn't go well either. Gosh, it's really just one thing after the other, isn't it? She can't catch a break. No, she really can't. She has placed under house arrest there for 19 years. 19. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I knew it's a long time. Oh, Elizabeth. Yeah. Gosh. And again, like thinking about Mary's relationship to all the men in her life going then to another female monarch, she must've thought this woman is going to have some empathy, some small, if not sympathy at least for my position, what I'm doing, what I'm up against, but no. And you could argue, you know, with the benefit of hindsight now, I suppose, you could argue

that if Elizabeth had a real grasp on the idea of absolute queenship, which that's what she would have believed in, or that's what she was supposed to believe in, that there is no way she could have treated another godly anointed monarch like this. And yet she does. So I'm always, we've had this conversation before, I'm always really fascinated by the things people should be believing and the things people were told believed in those points. Yeah, the distance in between those two things. I suppose, could you counter that by saying that Elizabeth has absolute belief in her own God-given right to rule? And she has, and this other Queen has entered her kingdom.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That actually other people do not have the same claim that she has, that God has made her. Yeah. Certainly if you think about it in say, the Jacobite situation a hundred years later in France. Which of course has its roots in this.

Yeah, absolutely. Mary, Queen of Scots is not treated like that, where they're given, you know, they're relatively poor, I suppose, but they're given positions in court. They are, people come to see them, they kind of are referred to as Kings and Queens in France. But here, Mary is very much a prisoner. So it is. She's stripped of everything, really. And eventually, I know we're going through this at pace, but again, go back and listen

to the final days of Mary, Queen of Scots for a little bit more of the historical detail of all of these events. But she is eventually found guilty of treason in terms of the Babington plot, which is the famous plot that she was supposedly involved in to overthrow Elizabeth I and place herself on the throne. And she's found guilty of treason. This is Mary, Queen of Scots I'm talking about now. And she is then executed. So that's the potted history of Mary. Isn't that? Like, how long did that take us? That took like 15, 20 minutes. There's a lot of history there. Do you know, there's a there's a line in Alan Bennett's play, The History Boys, and a word of this is going to have to be bleeped out in post. But it's a line that says, history, it's just

one thing after another. And that is absolutely what is happening with them. Well, poor Al Mairing has lots of one things happening after the other. Wow, she really does. Let's now park the history that we know. We have the potted version of her life, one thing after another, disaster, disaster, disaster. And then it was bad and then it was worse. This one was murdered and another person was murdered and then terrible things happened to her. You can see why she would potentially come back as a ghost to reap horror and fear

on her enemies. Let's go on the Mary, Queen of Scots ghost tour now. Take me to some of the sites where she's been seen. Yeah, that's a good point actually. You can see why she was, she's a good candidate to come back. Yeah, absolutely. I suppose one of the things to bear in mind with this is that Scotland has a very full and diverse history of ghosts, right? So Mary is just one of many that will fit into this Scottish landscape of ghouls and ghosts and spirits

that are returning. And I kind of love that because it's a way of communicating history in another way and it's a very folk-centred way of communicating history. So she's moving into that tradition here and that's kind of interesting. One of the tropes she fills there is the kind of lost woman, the wandering woman, a woman in certain colors. Which is a motif that comes up. Yeah, and that's not exclusive to exactly. It's not exclusive to Scotland, but it's certainly something we see in Scotland as well as in other places. And it also then feeds into

this idea of Scottish identity, Scottish nationalism, that she becomes a figurehead, I suppose, for tensions between Scotland and England and where Scotland sees itself in relation to the Kingdom of England. Yeah. And ghosts are very, very helpful, I think, in getting to handpick the historical figures that are useful to you in that moment. That you can, you know, sort of a pick a mix situation, you can be like, Oh, let's take this ghost from this era, and this ghost from

this era, and you can jumble it up and sort of curate your own version of history. And the manifestations of these ghosts that are reported in certain sites, feed into different narratives being told to that person, it's sort of revisionist history in a way. It's a way of reworking, retelling the facts that we've just gone over in a way that is relevant to the moment in which those ghosts are seen. And also when we get sightings in particular places, they will often then change over decades or centuries. You know, I'm thinking about the Tower of London, for example, and how that's reportedly one of the most haunted buildings in Britain, if not the world. But the ghosts that are seen there and that are reported and then those stories being retold

change all the time and some are more popular than others. It really depends what's going on in the moment that they're first seen, the moment that they're retold. Yeah yeah, I think that's, Mary fits into this, not only a Scottish tradition, which of course is very strong, but also this sort of broader practice of historicizing sites, historicizing moments in national stories. And you know what else she does in terms of ghosts? I mean, all of what you just said. Thanks. And tourism. Because ghosts are really useful. Yeah, yeah. Like ghosts are worth a bit of money. So what you will find is this ghost in its various guises will turn up places

that the Scottish people would like you to visit and more power to them. Shall we start with the first one? She has sat down and had a meeting with the Tourist Board. Scotland Tourist Board. Yeah. If you could just do this. Where are you going to be in May, Mary? Because we want... We've got you booked in at Stirling on the 29th. Yeah.

Yeah. Go on, take me to the first. Loch Leven Castle. Welcome to this very atmospheric place. Um, I will get you to describe it in a minute, but it is a fortress, but it's also been referred to as a prison island. It's apparently one of the most haunted places in Scotland. Love for Scottish castle on an island. Yes. Can I just say that's my ideal living situation. All alone on an island. That might be a bit too remote for me even now. You know I want to be down a lane. I'd take a dog with me. Not Matt. That's not her husband's not going. I'd row across the lake or the sea to see him occasionally. We could go to the pub together.

Oh he's really not going. I'd get so much more writing done on this island alone. Someone has a book deadline looming and she's blaming Matt. Blaming my husband, I'm so sorry. What you should say about rowing, come to that in a minute. Visitors to Loughleven have reported seeing somebody in a small boat, not Maddie, it's supposedly Mary where she has, you know, supposedly escaped to. They hear a woman crying. No, I'm sorry. Mary Queen of Scots. It's usually me that says no.

Mary Queen of Scots ain't doing her own rowing. Okay, you are going to find a lot of this happening in these ghost stories where you're like, historically, that's impossible. But it's kind of also irrelevant to the ghost story, but it doesn't fit the history. Yeah, it would, well, of course it doesn't, it's about ghosts. But what I mean is, it doesn't make, what people have invented doesn't make sense to the history. It could just never have occurred like that. And that's one of the ways. So there she is rowing away, away from, or towards, Lock, Leave and Castle, I suppose.

Now, I will say, what is interesting about that is that reportedly you're getting these sightings, these visual ghostly moments, but also you're saying that people are hearing things as well. So you've got this auditory hallucinations, visions, whatever you want to term them as well. And I think so many of the settings where Mary and traditionally ghosts appear are these incredibly atmospheric, tactile, interesting places where layers of history have built up. And into that, we naturally want to imagine or to add in more layers, layers that are a bit more ephemeral, that are just out of reach. And I think the fact that we're saying we can hear and see her

in this site and that she's moving across the water rowing, She's not. But I think that's, it speaks to our desire as human beings to populate these lost and empty spaces. And I kind of love that for us. Do you know what I mean? Like good, we have a bit of an imagination. Great. Don't just be like boring, like fill it in with ghosts. Why not? I'm here for it. So yes, we have the crying, we have the rowing. What's that? It's like, what is this motion? Rowing. Clearly I do not do a lot of rowing. I'm going to stop doing that with my hands now. So we have her rowing there. This is where, you know, she was imprisoned as they initially-

Okay, so she really was here? Well, yes. No, she was. She was. So yeah, she was. She was taken here by the nobles. Remember when I said they had intervened when Bothell was becoming a little bit too powerful? So this is linking that history where she's isolated by those nobles. So this is where the history and the ghost story intersect. Yeah. And also like this interesting isolated space as known as Prison Island, but is it a safe haven for her? Is it a prison? It's a bit of both. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose it's, well, it's known as Prison Island, isn't it? So I suppose it's

predominantly like, why is she rowing? Maybe rebrand for Airbnb. Yeah. Oh my God. I would so stay there. Two nights. Yes, please. Who owns this now? Please. Can we go? No, probably Heritage Scotland or something like that. Historic Scotland. Send us Historic Scotland, please. But she does attempt to escape. And I think that's what that ghost. So she attempts to escape in 1568. And I think maybe that's what that ghost is doing.

I mean, maybe she is doing her own rowing. No, she's not. She definitely gets someone to do the rowing. Somebody will help her escape, right? She's a doubt she's doing that on her own. I once went on an early date with my husband where he rode us on a lake and I'm really bashing on him today and he was rowing the wrong way and I didn't have the heart to tell him. So we're doing it up? Luckily even. I mean, he was literally rowing. Which way do you do it? He was rowing the wrong direction? Oh. No, Mary's absolutely having someone to row

for. Yeah, yeah, she's not rowing on her own. But anyway, she gets away and she rallies a bit of an army and then she, well her, of course is- Rallies a bit of an army. As you do. I've rallied so many armies over time. So yes, Bethlehem Langside, she loses, it doesn't matter. And then she has to side. She loses, it doesn't matter. And then she has to flee to England. It probably doesn't matter. Probably mattered at the time. But she never comes back to Scotland, Maddie. Well, that's a damning review of the Airbnb castle on the island, isn't it? And this is where she's forced to abdicate, by the way. So this is

when that fleeing to England happens. But I do see why she never comes back. No, I go. Yeah. I can give you an image of that castle island, prison island. Would you like to describe what you're seeing? It looks quite lush, doesn't it? It looks like a tropical island. This was taken on the one sunny day in Scotland a year. Sorry Scotland, don't come. Scotland has so many sunny days.

It does. I love Scotland. Please. You do, you do. Please don't hurt me. Okay, this is an aerial photograph of an island that is shaped kind of like a snail with its shell. I mean, it looks like a croissant. Okay, or across? Yeah, sure. Okay, croissant island, and it is mostly covered in trees. There's a little sort of spit of beach at the end. There's a little jetty as well where you could row

from if you were so inclined, Mary. And in the centre is a, I will say a modest sized castle. There's a sort of tower element and a wall all the way around it. It's not huge. No, it's kind of more of a fort than a castle. Would still live there? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Writing retreat please. Okay. We've done one Scottish castle, but it was a minor Scottish castle. It was very unimpressive. Give me a big Scottish castle now, please. I will. This is a Scottish castle. I have been, have you been to this one? It's sterling castle. I've never been sterling. Oh, it's nice. Well, I wasn't inside, but the bit that I was in outside. I think it wasn't nice inside. No, no, no. Well, I've never been, but the bit that I was in outside. I think it wasn't nice inside. No, no, no. Well, I've never been in.

I mean, it could be horrible. Yeah. Oh, God. This is unraveling. The ghosts of unsettled us. OK. But it is. But but in terms of the history, get back on track. Yes. In terms of the history, it is an important site. It is this kind of seat of royal power at this time.

And it would make sense that a queen's ghost, i.e. Mary's ghost, would be seen here. If she's going to be anywhere, she's going to be at Stirling. Okay, how does she appear? What's the crack? Well, she supposedly appears here as a pink lady. So this is apparently the color that Mary wore at her coronation, which doesn't ring true to me. Wait, her coronation as a baby? Yeah, yeah, I know. It doesn't, yeah, yeah, it doesn't. I'm saying, you know, that this is why they've given her that color, but it doesn't, it doesn't really stand up, I don't think necessarily to scrutiny. But Sterling Castle is the seat of royal power, very connected

to James the sixth and first, her son, of course. So I think the narrative building here is kind of going, it's a mother returning to her son. This is where he's raised and this is, you know, he becomes very Protestant here. He's crowned here. And so it's just tying her into this. And it's also talking about that tragic element of being removed from your child as well, you know? So it's tying all of those narratives together that they come to sterling. So people see her, are they hearing her as well? Because obviously we have her rowing, we had her sort of, what was she doing in the other place? Like moaning, crying? Yeah, crying. Well, she'll be very upset now for being taken to Prison Island.

Is she making any sounds at Stirling? She is. Remember I said about the baby? So we have lullabies heard, of course we do. We love a ghost with a lullaby. She's whispering as if like talking to a child. She's very gently coded in this ghost story. She's pink, she's singing lullabies, she's very motherly. This is a very, quite a sort of modern, feminine version of quite Victorian actually in a way, isn't it? Yeah, quite Victorian, yeah. Or even 20th century with the pink. Yeah, interesting. So that's her kind of Scotland journey, but probably the most significant haunting maybe, or the haunting that makes the most sense in terms of trauma and staying in the place

where there's trauma comes in England. In Fotheringhay Castle is the name of the place. It's where she's tried and executed. Where's that then? It's in Northamptonshire. I've been there. It's just ruins now. Sorry, have you done like the full Mary's Queen of Scots tour? Yeah, I have. Well, I did. I lived near both of those places for certain amounts of time. If you need to know anything about Anthony, it's that he moves house constantly. You have lived everywhere.

Yeah, I'm never in any of these castles mind, which is a sad state of affairs. One can hope. everywhere. Yeah, I'm never in any of these castles mind, which is a sad state of affairs. So if anyone wants to give me a castle, I'll go there. Okay, so tell me what's the relationship to this place and she's not kept here for the full 19 years. No, this is where she ends up in 1586 after the 19 years of house arrest because she is to be tried and she will be executed here. This is when she's found guilty of treason in the Babington plot to remove Elizabeth. And so this is a real tangible piece of history. We know she's here. We know she's tried. We know she's executed. So actually it makes sense. When she meets her end here, it's quite brutal, right? Like it's not, it's not a clean kill.

No, she is found guilty in, I think it's October 1586. Yes. That's what my notes say. October 1586. Tell me and I'll believe you. And she is found guilty, but Elizabeth ums and ahs about what to do with her. So it's not until the following year, 1587, that she is actually executed. And when it comes to it, again, go back to final days of Mary, Queen of Scots, all the details are in there, but it takes three or four attempts to actually sever the head from the body. It's not a pleasant disposal. Not bef not a pleasant disposal.

And not befitting a queen. No, not at all. And one of the reasons that she gets this kind of martyrology surrounding her straight away after her death. Martyrology. Please, I was raised as an Irish Catholic. I can roll that word out whenever you want me to. That's a gorgeous book title. Please write that book. Oh, God. I don't know what to write. So yeah, so it makes sense. And actually, this

all feeds into the ghost that's seen there because she is seen as a woman in red. So here's more colours. Well, you'd think so if she's had her head hacked off. Yeah. Well, and red is the colour of Catholic martyrs. Okay, right. Okay. So she, this is why she's seen in red there. And she's often seen on February the eighth, which is of course the anniversary of her death. This is why it can't go stories can be really useful. Because the story goes, she's seen on February the eighth, then you make that link and then you know the date that she's executed on. So like they do help they do inform one another. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anniversaries, important

places, battles as well, you often get ghosts associated with battles. They are a way of marking history, ghosts are. Yeah, absolutely. They're a useful historical or historiographical tool. Learning tool. Yeah. In the other two locations, we talked about sounds. So we had, we're crying and rowing. We have all those kinds of sounds at the first place. At the second place then we had the whispering, the lullabies, because we're talking about babies. Here, so we're talking about at fathering hey, we have thumps, bangs, sounds that fit with the execution, basically. So the sound of the the axe coming down and so we're hearing three or four times.

Yeah. So it's again, it's interesting, There's clues to the history in the in the sounds that are being ghostly laid upon these places. Now, one thing I do know about this site is that there is also the ghost of a small dog. Yeah, this is mad to me because it's almost talked about as fact that this happened and it doesn't make sense to me, but I'd just be interested to know what you think. So there's this thing that when she was executed, a small white dog had been under her skirts, like her small white dog that she absolutely loved and didn't want to leave her side. And then when she was executed, the white dog made itself known out of her skirts and then was like, Oh my God, everyone's so sad because there's a small white dog and the woman has lost her

head. But like it was, Oh my God, the dog. I'll be you. Me. She did have a small white dog. Um, there's a world in which she had numerous small white dogs actually, but why would the dog be hiding under the skirts? Like I know that kind of Tudor garb is quite large, but like she's going to her execution and she has to go up steps to get that. Oh, well actually maybe she didn't. I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's by the skirts and people don't really notice it because it's so close to her. Maybe she's just trained it really, really well. I want to believe it. But either way, people do say they see a small white dog ghost there as well. My dog would be far too big to fit under my skirt. Molly would come with me. Kip would be like, you're on

your own mate. You can deal with this yourself. I'll chew on your head afterwards. I don't care about you at all. But there is another place. Oh, I've also been here. Oundle. Have you ever been to Oundle? Yes, have I? What is it? Hold on. Arundel. Oh, no, not Arundel. Oundle. O-U-N-D-L-E, I think. No. I feel like I've not been to any castles ever.

Midlands. See the Midlands are... No, Oundle's not a castle. So Oundle's a little town. It's very sandstone-y. It's very beautiful, actually. Where is this? Maybe Northamptonshire too. It's very sandstone. It's very beautiful. Where is this? Maybe Northamptonshire too, certainly in the Midlands. Nice. Nice. There's a boarding school there and you know, I think it's maybe even 16th century in origin. So the whole town has grown up around that. So it's all very sandstone. It's like a really small Oxford or Cambridge. It's essentially a big village. There's a place there called the

Talbot Hotel. And it is place there called the Talbot Hotel and it is said that the bricks... Talbot being a small dog by the way. Oh is it actually? Talbot is a small dog. Yeah Talbot is a small dog. Didn't know that. Oh my god it's a learning day every day on AfterTrack. But they had taken, apparently they had taken some of the bricks from Fothering Hay and moved it, because not that far away from Andal, and used it to build the Talbot Hotel.

The ghost go with the bricks. Yes, they took some bricks and the staircase apparently or some of the wood from the staircase of Fotheringhay and used that to build the inn and now the inn has claimed that there's a ghost of Mary Queen of Scots. Love that for them. I know, I know, I know. I mean, I will say, you know, again, it comes down to this idea of sort of historic sites and historic materials, the building itself is imbued with, you know, the sort of idea of like stone tape theory, right? That ghostly

happenings or big sort of important historical moments are somehow seeded into the material of the environment in which they happen. So I can totally buy, I fully believe that, I fully believe the dog, I'm on board. They say they can feel the presence of her, of Mary Queen of Scots on those steps in the Talbot Inn. Isn't it funny? And she's whispering in the hunter's ears. Yeah, she's like, I was never here. What the hell am I doing? Have another pint.

Spend money here. But it's, I think it's fascinating because we've talked about this in other episodes where pubs become the focus for some of these paranormal things. And it feels very, and this is no shade, but this is like, feels very deliberate that you would, that these places that you want people to visit and spend money in, and I'm not talking about the owners today, I'm talking about, you know, centuries of owners who go, guess who you might bump into on the stairs if you come here and have a pint or whatever. And great, like marketing ploy. Yeah, and I think that kind of ghost culture is often quite tongue in cheek.

Yes. And it's doing several things at once. And like you say, it's advertising, it's drawing people in, it's storytelling as well. You know, you think of pubs have historically been places where people come together, they gather around a fire, they have a drink, they relax together. It's about community, it's about storytelling, it's about talking to your neighbors and reiterating the culture in which you live, confirming your identity, your group identity, who you are. And so to me it's no surprise that certainly in the 18th and 19th century you get, and indeed in the 20th century, you get people going to sites like that and engaging in ghost tradition.

Ghost hunts always go there. And I think, you know, I mean, you haven't been on a ghost hunt until you finish in the pub. Yeah, I know. But like you and I have, so Maddie and I went, not at the same times, to York at university. And if you're walking through York City, that is the ghost pub town capital of the world. You can't move for ghost tours. There's so many, and ghost pubs specifically like, and it made, well it did for me, it

made me want to go into them. I was like, oh, let's see what happens and we'll have a nice and then you're drunk and then, you know, things do happen, but it's probably just you falling over. But York really trades on it and other cities do as well. But it's, you know, York's a really nice little place for your ghostiness if you want to go and visit some of those there. Mary Queen of Scots wasn't there though, so forget about that. But plenty of other historical figures were. Tell me this, is Mary Queen of Scots to Scotland what Anne Boleyn is to England in terms of ghosts? Because in England you cannot move

for the ghost of Anne Boleyn. As we've explored previously with wonderful Tracy Borman on this podcast, is Mary Queen of Scots up there in terms of ghostly apparitions? She's popping up left, right and centre by the sounds of things. Yeah. She is definitely up there, isn't she? Is she Scotland's Anne Boleyn? I think she's Scotland's Mary Queen of Scots. Oh, beautiful. she Scotland's Anne Boleyn? I think she's Scotland's Mary Queen of Scots. And that was my transition into politics right there. I think they do a lot of the same work, don't

they? You cannot underestimate though, let's talk about this maybe, we cannot underestimate how important Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots are to the respective spreading of Scottish and English history in those periods. They are pivotal figures and often we're like, oh God, not another Ambelin, oh my God, not another Mary Queen of Scots. But if you think about how much those two women have inspired further investigations into history from people who may not be interested in history altogether, blatantly all the time, but they're going, well actually there's something about her story or even her ghost that then opens up a wider history. So in that sense, yeah,

I do think there's a comparison between the two of them. What do you think? I agree. Thanks. The end. No, I think, I think that's a perfect place to end actually, because I think what you're saying is that that is the function of ghosts. It's a way in to think about the past. It's a conversation starter. It's not the be all and end all. I think it's a gateway in to thinking about these histories, thinking about these moments in lives that have been lived and lost and accessing them in some way. It draws people to those places to think about the human beings behind those stories and how they would have experienced those places, how they would have felt in those places.

You can't get more engaging and more powerful than that. And you know what as well, just before you do the admin wrapping up bit, people can get a bit sniffy about like paranormal histories or like, you know, that kind of thing, as well as not real history. But actually, that work is so important to open up those gateways that you're talking about. And that's why we do like to concentrate on them here, because they do mean something to people. And there's no point in being snobbish about history. It's a starting point, sometimes these ghosts and the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots. And I think people might have come to this episode going, oh, I'm interested in the ghost of of Mary Queen of Scots. And I think people might have

come to this episode going, Oh, I'm interested in the ghost of Mary Queen of Scots. And by so doing, they may have learned something about the history of Mary Queen of Scots. So therefore, I'm all for it, Maddie. Done. Wrap up. Thank you very much for listening to this episode. Apparently, we're finished now. You can leave a five star review wherever you get your podcast and please do because it helps other people to find the show to understand how much you're enjoying it. Do spread the word if you're watching this on YouTube. Don't forget to like and subscribe.